An accordion legend passed away in September. Look, I don’t know what it is lately about life causing death but…oh, wait. The problem is I’m surrounded by death right now, as I must help people plan funeral Masses as a part of my job. There is a pattern to deaths recorded in our registry: a moderate death year is followed by a low death year which is followed by a high death year. However, the deaths in 2021 are significantly higher than preceding years. Oddly, 2020 was a low death year. The deaths skyrocketed after and are concurrent with ___. I’ll let you fill in the blank. I don’t have a good sense of 2022 yet; I don’t know how it fits, though if the pattern continues, it will be end up as the moderate year. That is simply not the way it appears when in the middle of an uptick of funerals. [Yes, I did just use one of the media’s catchwords. Please note that I avoided their rhetorical “surge.”]
Being surrounded by death is quite literally the way we live in this world. It’s inevitable. We’re uneasy with this reality in our culture, which does not like to carry on with lengthy wakes and viewings. I wrote about this years ago when I was examining the corpses of saints that have been displayed for ages in churches. Modern Americans, I’ve read, find that weird. But the truth is death is always there waiting, and it is sad for the living as we lose the people we love. They leave holes in our lives.
This can happen even at the level of celebrity. When a musician or author we love passes, the world loses some of its sparkle. Sorry, I have to digress. My coworker related a story about his special lowrider truck and a woman who complimented him for the “sparkles” he’d incorporated on the back window. Confused, he did a double-take and gasped: “Those aren’t sparkles! That’s broken glass.” His back window had been shattered while he was working. I’m sure there’s a corollary philosophical tie-in with life, death, and broken glass, but I’ll let the poets discover it.
The accordion legend Paulino Bernal passed away in September; his son died only days after him. That family has to be hurting double time right now. However, they were Christian men, and our hope as Christians is in eternal life with our creator. Let me tell you about Paulino Bernal: he was a tejano accordionist who initially went down the path musicians will, of alcohol, drugs, and not enough time with their families. That was before God got a hold of him and turned his life around. He became an evangelist and began to record praise music. Paulino Bernal was not a young man when he died; he was in his eighties. Still, it’s sad for the world to lose a legend such as that. His son was a pastor, which might not be as glamorous as an accordion player (I’m glamorous, right?) but is obviously a vital life role.
It is hard to describe the impact human beings have on one another; just our presence in the world changes things for the good or bad around us. If you know anything about tejano music, you probably know Paulino Bernal was the man who discovered Ramon Ayala’s accordion skills. After he became transformed through Christ, eventually so did Ramon Ayala. And that is a story I know because I read news articles about the musicians I love. Who knows how many non newsworthy lives Señor Bernal affected positively because his heart was transformed through Jesus? Who knows how many lives his son, the pastor, impacted?
When I think of death, and I have done that more than I expected lately, this is what I ponder: what kind of world will I leave behind me? I know that I’ve been petty and have hurt people. We all have. But I don’t want that to be the sum total of my life. I want my heart to cry out instead, “Here I am, Lord. Send me.” I want to be of true utility to the world. Is that selfish? It almost sounds selfish, but it’s actually more childish than it is selfish. Anyone who’s been in a classroom knows there will always be a handful of enthusiastic children who fling their arms in the air because they desperately want to be chosen by Teacher, even if they can’t answer Teacher’s question without help… probably because they were daydreaming instead of paying attention. Well, I am that child, waving my hand up to God. The daydreaming part is sadly true, too.
RIP Paulino Bernal and his son. May their family feel God’s blessings.
Jill Domschot 